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Clinical Experience Requirement

Please read these instructions carefully!

The purpose of this requirement is forced counselling. This required exposure to the profession should guide you on deciding whether physical therapy is the best career choice for you. If you are planning on completing this just before applying, how do you know PT is for you?

All applicants to the Physical Therapy Program at Hunter College are required to have had practical experience in a physical therapy setting in order to be considered for admission to our program. We recommend that you try to select a health care facility having a physical therapy service which treats a variety of disability groups and ages. Your participation in the Physical Therapy Department can be either on a paid or voluntary basis. We require a minimum of 100 hours of exposure, of which at least 50 hours is obtained in an acute care hospital setting. A multi-disciplinary inpatient hospital type rehabilitation setting is also considered acceptable toward these 50 hours .

If all of your clinical experience is in a private practice, school setting or a nursing home, you will not meet the clinical experience requirement. You must make your own arrangements for this experience.

Clinical experience forms must be completed by a physical therapist and placed in a sealed envelope from that facility. Only one clinical experience form will be accepted from each facility for the applicant. One page letters submitted by a volunteer office will only be accepted to document clinical hours. They do not replace a clinical experience form from a physical therapist.

To verify your experience and to provide a reference for you, the form must be completed by a Physical Therapist who observed your performance. He/she may return the completed form to you in a sealed envelope for you to submit directly to the Hunter College Physical Therapy Program office, or the form should be sent directly to the PT Department. Enter your name and address on the top of the form and sign the disclaimer before forwarding to the physical therapist.

The deadline for receipt of all Clinical Experience Forms is November 1. Forms received after November 1 may result in you not being called in for an interview.

You may photocopy the form if you require more than one form submitted from more than one facility. Documented clinical experience of a minimum of 100 hours under supervision of a licensed physical therapist in the United States is required before applying to the program; a minimum of 50 hours must be in a hospital-based setting. Inquire at any hospital about volunteering in their Physical Therapy Department to gain this clinical experience. The Clinical Experience Form documenting completion of the 100 hours must be received by the Physical Therapy Program NO LATER THAN November 1st. The clinical experience must be obtained with a licensed Physical Therapist in a Physical Therapy Department and completed by the same therapist. Foreign trained physical therapists, or individuals obtaining clinical experience outside the US, should refer to the section below for International Students.

You may also submit up to two letters of recommendation. If it is not possible to submit a clinical experience form, we will accept a one page letter from the physical therapist stating your accumulated number of clinical experience hours, type of facility, and the physical therapist's impression according to criteria on the Clinical Experience Form.